Tango, Uniform, Victor, What now!?

For the average human being, there’s no telephone conversation more bewildering than when the caller, when asked for their surname, starts hurling random and disconnected words at you as if it’s the most normal thing in the world. You may have come across it - the conversation sounds something like this...

“And could I just take your surname, Sir?”

“Certainly, it’s Sierra, Mike, Yankee, Tango, Hotel, Echo.”

Silence.

I don’t think it’s politically incorrect to tell you that the first time this happened to me, it took a good few seconds before I realised I was not in fact dealing with a turrets sufferer. The official term for this indecipherable torrent of words is the NATO phonetic alphabet, designed originally for increased accuracy over radio transmission, but now used mainly to terrorise telesales staff.

It’s like a secret code, bestowed only upon those over 65 or employed in the military, which not only allows the user the privilege of communication over long distances and under poor signal, but also the wonderful smugness that entails coming across someone who is uneducated in “the code”.

And of course, what makes it worse is that whenever we are forced to use this ridiculous alternative to spelling out, every single word we can think of is either inconceivably immature or totally inappropriate. And it happens every time! As incomprehensible a phenomenon as crop circles or Bruce Forsyth...

You’re asked to spell out ‘Thompson’ and all of a sudden there are simply NO WORDS beginning with the letter ‘T’. Your mind’s racing, heart thrashing, grasping desperately for something, anything! Then out of nowhere a chaotic array of juvenile words flash before your eyes...‘tits’, ‘tofu’, ‘toilet’...NO!!...‘toast’....OH SHIT!...‘toggle!’, ‘testicle!’......'TAKE THAT!!’

After five seconds of agonising silence, you’re forced to settle for ‘torch’, and breathe a sigh of relief. Until you turn back to the task at hand and are hit with ‘H’. Bollocks!...‘hymen!’, ‘hermaphrodite!’, ‘whore!’...THAT’S NOT EVEN AN ‘H’!!

Incidentally, the NATO phonetic alphabet is actually formerly known as the international radiotelephony spelling alphabet. That’s India, November, Tango, Echo...

Go figure.